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Hitachi yesterday claimed the notebook hard drive performance lead as it shipped what it reckons is the world's fastest 2.5in HDD for mobile applications.

The 100GB Travelstar 7K100 spins at a desktop-standard 7200rpm. Hitachi says its own benchmarks show the drive operates seven per cent faster than 3.5in 7200rpm, 2MB cache desktop-specific drives.

The company's own tests also show a 25 per cent performance gain over "the fastest competitive" 2.5in 5400rpm drive. But since the new Travelstar spins 33 per cent faster than a 5400rpm unit, this is perhaps to be expected.

Hitachi says there was no comparable 7200rpm unit on the market when it conducted its testing. Seagate last month announced a 100GB 7200rpm notebook drive of its own, but it has yet to say when the product will ship.

Hitachi's new drive will also ship in 60GB and 80GB capacities. The company is shipping a parallel ATA version now, and expects to ship a Serial ATA implementation in July.

The drives can withstand 1000G non-operating shock and 300G operating shock - both more than the Seagate drive. The Travelstar offers an average latency of 4.2ms, with an 10ms average read time and an 11ms average write time - all pretty much what Seagate's drive provides.

Likewise, the Travelstar's 1.1W active power consumption and 0.85W idle power consumption match the Seagate's 1.1W and 0.95W figures. The acoustics are comparable too.

All Travelstar 7K100 models are RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances)-compliant, Hitachi said. This summer it plans to ship a 24x7-availability version pitched at blade servers.

Dell is using the new Hitachi drive in its Inspiron XPS Gen 2 gaming notebook ®